How
should Kerala rebuild after the immense disaster? If we do wish to
prevent or mitigate such disasters, we should use a radically different
approach to conservation and development. Here is some advice from Prof. Madhav
Gadgil, who chaired the panel on Western Ghats:
·
Abandon the short-sighted attempts in building man-made capital
(buildings in hilly forests, encroachments on wetlands and rivers, and stone
quarries) and enhance the sum total of man-made, natural, human and social
capital.
·
Acknowledge that it is local communities that have a genuine stake
in the health of their ecosystems and possess an understanding of the working
of the same.
·
Respect the right of local communities to decide what kind of development
they want and what kind of conservation measures they would like to see put in
place.
·
Provide positive incentives to people such as payment of
conservation service charges for protecting important elements of biodiversity
such as sacred groves and payment towards soil carbon enrichment by switching
to organic farming.
·
Empower local bodies at the ward, gram panchayat, and town and
city levels to prepare reports on the status of the environment and to decide
on how a substantial portion of the budget should be spent on the basis of
these reports.
·
Set up Biodiversity Management Committees of citizens and empower
them to document the status of the local ecosystems and biodiversity resources,
and regulate their use.
·
Fully implement the Forest Rights Act and empower not only
tribals, but all traditional forest dwellers to control, manage and market
non-timber forest produce.
·
Finally, come up with appropriate conservation and development
plans that are properly fine-tuned to locality- and time-specific ecological and
social conditions.
In
short, we should adopt a broad-based inclusive approach to conservation and
development. Such an approach is applicable to and necessary for most
parts of India.
Source: Article by Prof. Gadgil in The Hindu, August 30, 2018
